Would you invest 32 cents for a $1 return? If you would, then give creep feeding a serious look. With today's excellent prices, now's the time to explore return on investment.

While calving season is in full swing on some farms, others are looking ahead to get the calf crop off and running. Smart creep feeding should be part of the planning process for optimizing your beef production potential.

The key to optimizing your herd's profit potential centers around a lot of factors--management, disease, weather, markets, etc. Capturing the most pounds possible of cost-effectively raised beef at marketing is crucial to bottom lines. A way to accomplish this is to creep feed calves using advances in nutrition and thinking.

Creeping beef calves does several things. It provides calves with added nutrition at a time when the cow's milking levels are subsiding, due in part to the maturing of cool-season grasses. At the same time, the calf's nutritional needs are increasing. This is commonly referred to as the "hungry calf gap." Secondly, calves do not have functional rumens until they weigh approximately 400 pounds. As a result, calves can't fully use the nutrition available in forages before their rumen matures to handle forages efficiently.

Evaluate creep-feeding choices with an eye to feed conversion rates (FCRs). FCRs figure the pounds of feed needed to put on a pound of gain. The most economical FCRs are obtained by creep feeding calves as early as 60 days of age. At this age, using a product like MFA Cattle Charge with Bovatec will allow you to obtain FCRs as low as 2:1, with an average feed conversion of 4:1 to 5:1 during the course of the entire creeping season. Contrast this with first providing creep feed to the 7-month-old calf with possible FCRs of 8:1 or higher.

Some sources prefer to limit creeping calves by offering limited pounds/calf/day. If you are considering this, an alternate viewpoint is in order. Offer free-choice creep feed to calves for a limited time, preferably when calves have the best FCRs (60 days of age and up). This lets them grow faster and eat forage when they are bigger. This also lets them convert as much intake as possible at the best rates of efficiency.

Feed conversion rates depend on the ingredients used in creep feed--period. Newer products have a 4:1 or better FCR. This depends on many variables including stress level, disease, etc. These lower (better) rates have a big impact on bottom line returns.

Let's say a feeder calf is worth $1/pound, and a 4:1 FCR creep feed is fed costing $160/ton (8 cents/pound). For 32 cents worth of creep feed, a roughly 3:1 return on your money is possible. That's $1 of added beef to sell for that 32-cent investment in feed. Put another way, that's 68 cents of income over feed costs on each pound of added beef. This makes good economic sense for selling a heavier, straight-sided calf at weaning. With today's strong beef prices, now's the time to take added dollars to the bottom line.

High starch ingredients (oats/corn) tend to add fleshiness to calves in the form of soft gains. Newer-generation creep feeds add hard gains with the end goal of building straight-sided calves. And they avoid concerns geared to the 6- to 9-month-old heifer regarding added fat in the udder seen with high starch rations, impairing future milk production. Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you feel they're reaching better-than-medium flesh, shut off the creep feed or adjust their feeders, making calves work harder to get feed.

There's more.

Research studies at the University of Illinois revealed creep-fed calves had a 27 percent higher incidence of choice-grading carcasses. Retained ownership folks selling on a grid will see the dollar benefits from that. And creep-fed calves are healthier, getting a daily dose of vitamins, minerals and usually an ionophore (Bovatec) or a coccidiostat (Deccox). Healthier calves ward off stress and perform better all the way around.

Bottom line?

The key to solid performance is low FCRs, high average daily gains (feeds with high FCRs have low average daily gains) and economical cost of gains. When all three of these factors are considered together, you can figure your best approach.

Know what you are feeding and what feed conversion rates your calves have achieved in past years, both from commercial feeds and from commodity mix offerings.

Strong calf prices are forecast for the next two to three years. Take advantage of strong beef prices, low nutrition costs and feeds that economically convert nutrition to valuable pounds of added beef. Consider all financial and performance angles when making your decision. Then make the most of the available resources to optimize your profits.

Why settle for anything less?